True, true, and it doesn't say it's granting the right, it says that it shall not be infringed.
That is because a right cannot be granted. All rights are inherent. A government cannot do anything unless granted that power by the governed, at least that is how the Constitution was written. A government has powers, people have rights. Rights trump powers.
There are those that thought the Bill of Rights was unnecessary and redundant since the government did not have the power to infringe on the people's rights, that power was not granted and could not be granted. Enumerating rights as protected was viewed as dangerous since rights not enumerated could be viewed as unprotected. Which is why we have the trouble we have now, the founding fathers did not foresee the creation of the devices we have today. The definition of "papers" that one has the right to keep secure is apparently not broad enough to keep the government out of our electronics.
Denying one's ability to defend themselves is the same as denying one's right to defend themselves. Denying firearm possession from the weak leaves them vulnerable to the strong. Denying one's right to being secure in their information because it exists in the form of "bits" and not "papers" is doing an end run around an enumerated right. This is exactly what the founders that opposed a Bill of Rights feared. A right does not cease to exist just because the government was not explicitly prevented from infringing on it. The government only has the power to deny our rights to life, liberty, and property when exercising those rights infringe upon another's rights. Keeping secure the information on our electronic devices is an inherent right that should require a warrant or probable cause for an agent of the government to seize that information.
Perhaps it is time the tree of liberty is refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
I'm basing my hypothesis on the claims of those that oppose the theory of human caused global warming. Those that believe the primary driver behind global warming is solar activity, while in the minority, have been more convincing to myself than the CO2 believers. Solar activity and global temperature have been well recorded by civilization for about 400 years, and by proxy for millions, and those records show a high correlation between solar activity and climate change. If I am wrong, and I am perfectly willing to accept that I may be wrong, then all we have to do is wait to see how the sun and the climate changes in the next decade or two to see if I am wrong.
Records have shown that the sun is now more active than it has been in recorded history, something that many choose to ignore when discussing climate change. All I want to point out is that those that think human activity is warming the earth just might be wrong, just like I might be wrong. The fact is we don't have enough facts to definitively state either side is correct.
Despite the cause of the global warming (I am quite convinced that the earth is warming) this idea of turning biomass into jet fuel to reduce CO2 output is lunacy. I've done a bit of reading on alternative means of producing carbon based fuels and none of them are truly CO2 net zero while remaining economically feasible except when nuclear energy is involved.
If people want to reduce CO2 in the air (assuming that is the cause of global warming or other undesirable condition) then we need nuclear power. If we, as members of oil importing states or countries, want to achieve energy independence then we need nuclear power. Research into turning biomass into jet fuel, while a noble effort, is far from saving the planet unless the energy to drive the process is derived from somewhere other than coal, natural gas, or the very biomass needed as feedstock. That means nuclear power because there just is not enough solar, wind, wave, or biomass to go around.
We need nuclear power plants. We need them now, and in large numbers.
First off, I am not convinced that global warming is caused by human activity. I think it is caused by solar activity, which should be proven correct or not in the next decade if the predictions of less solar activity comes true.
I think the idea of getting our fuels from local sources is going to become increasingly important for our national security and standard of living. The government, especially the Department of Defense, is quite aware of this. Synthesized hydrocarbons is not a new idea. It's been done. The claim of a net zero effect on the environment just sounds so incredible to me. As long as one is burning hydrocarbons there is still going to be CO2 and, more importantly, water coming out of the tail pipe. I emphasize water because that is a more powerful, plentiful, and seemingly invisible greenhouse gas than CO2. I say invisible because no one is talking about it. I doubt anyone will because as preposterous as it may sound to call CO2 a "pollutant" it would be even more so to claim that water is a pollutant.
While the article mentions that the carbon emissions will be offset by the biomass from which the fuel is derived there is no mention of where the energy is coming from to produce this fuel. What this syhtetic fuel process does is take molecules from a low potential energy state (water, biomass) and turn it into a higher potential energy state (jet fuel). That energy has to come from somewhere. There just is not enough energy density in traditional "green" energy sources (wind, water, solar, biomass) to match what one can get from burning coal, petroleum, or natural gas. The only place to get enough energy for this process to fuel the planes at a price even close to what we have come to expect is to burn that coal to fire that jet fuel plant. All they are doing is shifting the CO2 emissions from the plane in the air to the fuel plant on the ground.
The only way this process is going to meet the claims of net zero carbon into the air (and still be economically viable) is to power this by nuclear energy. I find it quite aggravating that articles such as these do not make that connection. I guess it is because of the audience they are speaking to, or that the scientists themselves are so caught up in their work (and their funding) that they fail to make a mention of that fact, or are themselves oblivious to where the energy will come from.
If we want to reduce the amount of CO2 going into the air we need nuclear power. We need it now and it great quantities. That is the only solution that I see. All this talk about hydrogen this, solar that, and energy efficient what-cha-ma-call-its only distracts from that very important detail. We need more nuclear power plants.
If the Microsoft police come knocking on your door just tell them to fuck off. They are not a police force no matter what their fancy t-shirts and jackets have printed on them.
OK, so maybe it's not that simple. I doubt that they can take you to any criminal court. They'd have to take you to civil court to make you cough up anything. Would they bother? Perhaps, just to make an example. Even then I would think that "innocent until proven guilty" should apply.
I am not a lawyer. I'm just ranting because your comment hit a nerve. People have become fearful of corporations and that is just not right. These are the same corporations that depend on us buying their products to stay in business and yet their customers (and potential customers) have become their enemies. In Theory (which, BTW, sounds like a great place to live if I could only find it on the map) corporations should be bowing before me since I have the money they need to stay in business. I don't live in Theory, and I doubt anyone else reading does either, and so we all fear the big corps.
You are making the same mistake that many others have. ODF does not equate to OpenOffice. Yes, Microsoft can support ODF but so can IBM, Sun, Corel, Red Hat, and so many other large corporations. Thing is that not only CAN Microsoft's big corporate competition switch to ODF but they ALREADY HAVE. If there is a mandate to switch to ODF then Microsoft will have to add that support to compete. They will also have to do so at the last minute so as to not give any confidence in ODF. By displaying little confidence in ODF as a native format they are also displaying little confidence in their ability to support ODF.
Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Once they add ODF support to be considered for a competition for a state contract they will have to add that support to everyone they sell Microsoft Office to in the future. If they don't they are likely to find themselves in a support nightmare (I saved it with Word in Illinois, why won't it open in Word when I'm in New York?), or a legal nightmare (So you're telling me I can't sell this version of Office to someone from out of state? What about interstate commerce laws?).
Microsoft probably realizes, which is why they fight so hard, that open formats have to win only one battle to win the war. Once open formats get a foot in the door it will only be a matter of time for open formats spread. Having a populous state like New York, California, or Texas will only make the switch happen more quickly in federal and neighboring state governments.
The advantage of using Microsoft is in economies of scale, and network effects. The same advantage will make open formats spread very quickly once established in one state to other states.
Microsoft is very afraid. They should be. Office is one of their few products that has the distinction of actually turning a profit. A move to open formats would force them to compete on price, support, and features, something that they haven't had to do for a very long time.
Any of your doubts as to why your software continues to be pirated, cracked, or otherwise made available to those who you think have no desire to pay is in part directly because of your continued arbitrary restrictions against otherwise legitimate uses.
More and more people are using VOIP as their primary phone service in the home. Aren't there laws against cutting off one's access to 911? That would be the net effect if the internet provider killed a person's broadband. If a person doesn't pay the bill on their POTS telephone the telephone company will generally kill the phone's ability to receive calls and dial anything except 911 and the customer support, but they won't make it completely dead.
The FCC said that it will no longer maintain separate privileges between Technician and Technician Plus. Does that mean Technicians gain the privileges of the Tech Plus or do the Tech Plus lose its HF privileges?
People ask why there was a Morse code test to begin with. What I was told at one time was that it was to allow the US Navy, the group that issued Amateur radio licenses way way back when, wanted to be able to order Amateurs off the air if they needed a frequency. This was because while the Amateurs could build what ever radio they liked the Navy had a large number of CW radios which could not be replaced on a whim. I was then repeatedly berated to stop spreading such a myth but was rarely given the real reason that Morse code testing was put into place.
So, this is the REAL reason that Morse code was required of Amateurs. Long ago when spark gap transmitters roamed the earth there were many different "alphabets" in use. The only way to communicate was with on/off keying, now commonly called CW, using short and long tones and short and long spacing in between the tones one could portray letters and numbers. There was the US Navy code, the Royal Navy code, the American Morse code, the Continental Morse code etc. So unless you knew what the code was it was hard for people to understand each other. So by international agreement they agreed on the International Morse Code. Amateurs were then required to know it since voice communication was rare on the radio at the time.
Fooling the thumb print scanners was also in a Mythbusters episode. They fooled the "unfoolable" with a spit moistened photocopy (IIRC). I have little faith in such technology.
Did he just say that Windows XP is broken? Why would I want to buy from him again if I got stuck with a broken product the first time around? It doesn't give much in consumer confidence if their answer for a flawed product is to buy the next one that they promise is not broken, which is what they said the last time.
Aren't there laws against this? I mean if my car has flaw in its brakes the company that made it is usually required to fix it by law. If not then at least the manufacturer feels compelled to fix it to assure that they can continue to sell since a poor product tends to sit on store shelves.
I guess I live in a dream world where most everything is a commodity, where standards prevail, and where competition drives excellence.
Any one else find it frightening that it has come down to where we are asking the government permission to enter a plane?
I had a discussion about this with a friend from work the other day about this very topic. He didn't seem concerned about the eroding of our freedoms.
Checking identification does not stop the criminals. It just forces them to go the extra step to steal your identity first. If the potential terrorist enters a plane without weapons then they are not a threat. If there are crew, passengers, and hopefully a marshall, on board willing and able to subdue any one that poses a threat to people or the plane then they are not a threat.
Checking for knives, guns, and explosives before entering a plane makes me feel safe. Checking my identification before I have done anything wrong makes me feel like I have had my freedoms eroded.
"Uncle Sam? May I please get from point A to point B?" "Papers please?"
The "special access card and receiver" is called a "television set". They are doing exactly what you propose. Since there are a few reasons for buying a television and not using it for receiving broadcast TV there is a process to apply for a waiver. Just be thankful a waiver exists at all.
There was a mention to regulate CO2 as a pollutant.
Sooooo, I'll have to file for my yearly tax on breathing? Will I (or rather my estate) get a "carbon credit" for when I'm dead and buried? After all my corpse having been given a proper Christian burial will have sequestered several pounds of carbon. (How much carbon is there in a human body anyway?)
How about going after those other greenhouse gases, like water and methane? Maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas, and buy some Beano just in case they pick up on it.
Nuclear doesn't make sense for energy. It's been clear from the cost of operation from day one, but sometimes people refuse to see it.
And you have numbers to back this up? It's all about a cost/benefit. Nuclear may cost more in $$$ but produces no CO2, NOx, or soot.
How much Uranium is available for mining in the world? How does How much Uranium does it take to make refined nuclear fuel? What's the price of Uranium fuel nowadays? Is it increasing sharply? Why?
There is enough uranium in the ground to last centuries. If the legal issues are pushed aside for things like preventing refining spent fuel (a recently removed hurdle) and keeping breeder reactors from being built we would have enough fuel for a very long time since we could effectively make more fuel as we burn what we mined.
Tying ourselves to nuclear energy is putting ourselves in the same trap as fossil fuel, except it'll be a much faster trap to spring.
You have data to back up this assertion?
Two additional thoughts: How much fossil fuel do we currently use to mine the Uranium, refine it, and build the reactors? And how much additional heat do you think each reactor dumps into the lakes and rivers they use for cooling water?
The amount of heat that a nuclear reactor dumps into the lakes and rivers per kWh is identical to that of a coal fired plant. The only difference between how a nuclear and coal fired electric power plant is how they heat the water to spin the turbines that drive the generators. Considering the energy density of uranium versus that of coal I would imagine that much less energy is spent on getting the uranium out of the ground and into the reactor than the energy spent getting the coal from ground to boiler given identical power outputs.
What is currently keeping nuclear power plants from being competitive is the operating costs. Because regulations require safety and environmental measures well above that of a coal plant a nuclear power plant cannot compete. Put similar restraints on pollution and radiation (yes, coal is radioactive as are many things dug from the ground) and the playing field will be level.
The most interesting thing to me right now is reading all the old guys lament the FCC dropping the last of the Morse code tests to get a ham license on QRZ.com.
I don't have a license yet but will once the FCC proposal to end Morse code testing becomes law. I don't think I'll do much talking at first. Right now I'm more interested in shortwave listening, digital communication, and weather spotting. None of those interests require a ham radio license but it would be reqired to transmit if I wish.
I remember a few years ago where just about every Linux distro supported booting from a drive file. Sadly that feature seems MIA these days. I was thinking that such a feature may be useful with Boot Camp to allow each Linux "partition" to exist in its own file on either the FAT/NTFS or HFS+/UFS partition.
I've been hoping to see a Linux distro that supported booting from a drive image file for PPC. It would help in convincing some people to try out Linux on their Macs, some of which still run Mac OS 9.
From my understanding this "cold" fusion requires heavy hydrogen just like the traditional "hot" fusion. That means tritium or the more stable deuterium. Where can a person go to buy this stuff? Is the density of heavy hydrogen in normal tap water high enough to make this "Mr. Fusion - Home edition" work? Can the heavy hydrogen be derived from sources other than water? Such as natural gas? Imagine that, a standard house furnace or water heater with a fusion "afterburner" to get the most out of your natural gas bill.
Maybe this is all moot since the heater will have a 30 year supply of heavy hydrogen inside out of the factory. Just bring it home and turn it on. When the fuel runs out send it back for disposal and buy a new one.
Even if this does work many questions are going to have to be answered before people go out and buy it.
Interesting how they tie the giveaway to current Republicans and Democrats and yet who is mentioned supporting the giveaway in the article?
* Charles Grassley, Republican (IA)
* Rick Santorum, Republican (PA)
* Gordon Smith, Republican (OR)
* Orrin Hatch, Republican (UT)
Who is mentioned as being against the giveaway?
* Lloyd Doggett, Democrat (TX)
So maybe it's the so-called "liberal media" who is just raking the GOP over the coals. Or, maybe it's representative of trying to show the corrupt GOP Congress as being bipartisan in a weak attempt to appear "fair and balanced."
In this case, I suspect it's the latter. YRMV.
Don't look at the party so much as the home state of the Congresscritters. A Texan isn't going to like alternative fuel subsidies since a large part of their economy is based on the production of conventional fuels. States rich in wood, corn, and coal are going to support the subsidy since it brings money to their state.
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Do you still have both of your kidneys?
As a friend of mine pointed out, which should have been obvious from the start, suicide bombers tend to not be repeat offenders.
Of course, how could I forget about Rhode Island.
True, true, and it doesn't say it's granting the right, it says that it shall not be infringed.
That is because a right cannot be granted. All rights are inherent. A government cannot do anything unless granted that power by the governed, at least that is how the Constitution was written. A government has powers, people have rights. Rights trump powers.
There are those that thought the Bill of Rights was unnecessary and redundant since the government did not have the power to infringe on the people's rights, that power was not granted and could not be granted. Enumerating rights as protected was viewed as dangerous since rights not enumerated could be viewed as unprotected. Which is why we have the trouble we have now, the founding fathers did not foresee the creation of the devices we have today. The definition of "papers" that one has the right to keep secure is apparently not broad enough to keep the government out of our electronics.
Denying one's ability to defend themselves is the same as denying one's right to defend themselves. Denying firearm possession from the weak leaves them vulnerable to the strong. Denying one's right to being secure in their information because it exists in the form of "bits" and not "papers" is doing an end run around an enumerated right. This is exactly what the founders that opposed a Bill of Rights feared. A right does not cease to exist just because the government was not explicitly prevented from infringing on it. The government only has the power to deny our rights to life, liberty, and property when exercising those rights infringe upon another's rights. Keeping secure the information on our electronic devices is an inherent right that should require a warrant or probable cause for an agent of the government to seize that information.
Perhaps it is time the tree of liberty is refreshed with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
I'm basing my hypothesis on the claims of those that oppose the theory of human caused global warming. Those that believe the primary driver behind global warming is solar activity, while in the minority, have been more convincing to myself than the CO2 believers. Solar activity and global temperature have been well recorded by civilization for about 400 years, and by proxy for millions, and those records show a high correlation between solar activity and climate change. If I am wrong, and I am perfectly willing to accept that I may be wrong, then all we have to do is wait to see how the sun and the climate changes in the next decade or two to see if I am wrong.
Records have shown that the sun is now more active than it has been in recorded history, something that many choose to ignore when discussing climate change. All I want to point out is that those that think human activity is warming the earth just might be wrong, just like I might be wrong. The fact is we don't have enough facts to definitively state either side is correct.
Despite the cause of the global warming (I am quite convinced that the earth is warming) this idea of turning biomass into jet fuel to reduce CO2 output is lunacy. I've done a bit of reading on alternative means of producing carbon based fuels and none of them are truly CO2 net zero while remaining economically feasible except when nuclear energy is involved.
If people want to reduce CO2 in the air (assuming that is the cause of global warming or other undesirable condition) then we need nuclear power. If we, as members of oil importing states or countries, want to achieve energy independence then we need nuclear power. Research into turning biomass into jet fuel, while a noble effort, is far from saving the planet unless the energy to drive the process is derived from somewhere other than coal, natural gas, or the very biomass needed as feedstock. That means nuclear power because there just is not enough solar, wind, wave, or biomass to go around.
We need nuclear power plants. We need them now, and in large numbers.
... but not because of global warming.
First off, I am not convinced that global warming is caused by human activity. I think it is caused by solar activity, which should be proven correct or not in the next decade if the predictions of less solar activity comes true.
I think the idea of getting our fuels from local sources is going to become increasingly important for our national security and standard of living. The government, especially the Department of Defense, is quite aware of this. Synthesized hydrocarbons is not a new idea. It's been done. The claim of a net zero effect on the environment just sounds so incredible to me. As long as one is burning hydrocarbons there is still going to be CO2 and, more importantly, water coming out of the tail pipe. I emphasize water because that is a more powerful, plentiful, and seemingly invisible greenhouse gas than CO2. I say invisible because no one is talking about it. I doubt anyone will because as preposterous as it may sound to call CO2 a "pollutant" it would be even more so to claim that water is a pollutant.
While the article mentions that the carbon emissions will be offset by the biomass from which the fuel is derived there is no mention of where the energy is coming from to produce this fuel. What this syhtetic fuel process does is take molecules from a low potential energy state (water, biomass) and turn it into a higher potential energy state (jet fuel). That energy has to come from somewhere. There just is not enough energy density in traditional "green" energy sources (wind, water, solar, biomass) to match what one can get from burning coal, petroleum, or natural gas. The only place to get enough energy for this process to fuel the planes at a price even close to what we have come to expect is to burn that coal to fire that jet fuel plant. All they are doing is shifting the CO2 emissions from the plane in the air to the fuel plant on the ground.
The only way this process is going to meet the claims of net zero carbon into the air (and still be economically viable) is to power this by nuclear energy. I find it quite aggravating that articles such as these do not make that connection. I guess it is because of the audience they are speaking to, or that the scientists themselves are so caught up in their work (and their funding) that they fail to make a mention of that fact, or are themselves oblivious to where the energy will come from.
If we want to reduce the amount of CO2 going into the air we need nuclear power. We need it now and it great quantities. That is the only solution that I see. All this talk about hydrogen this, solar that, and energy efficient what-cha-ma-call-its only distracts from that very important detail. We need more nuclear power plants.
If the Microsoft police come knocking on your door just tell them to fuck off. They are not a police force no matter what their fancy t-shirts and jackets have printed on them.
OK, so maybe it's not that simple. I doubt that they can take you to any criminal court. They'd have to take you to civil court to make you cough up anything. Would they bother? Perhaps, just to make an example. Even then I would think that "innocent until proven guilty" should apply.
I am not a lawyer. I'm just ranting because your comment hit a nerve. People have become fearful of corporations and that is just not right. These are the same corporations that depend on us buying their products to stay in business and yet their customers (and potential customers) have become their enemies. In Theory (which, BTW, sounds like a great place to live if I could only find it on the map) corporations should be bowing before me since I have the money they need to stay in business. I don't live in Theory, and I doubt anyone else reading does either, and so we all fear the big corps.
You are making the same mistake that many others have. ODF does not equate to OpenOffice. Yes, Microsoft can support ODF but so can IBM, Sun, Corel, Red Hat, and so many other large corporations. Thing is that not only CAN Microsoft's big corporate competition switch to ODF but they ALREADY HAVE. If there is a mandate to switch to ODF then Microsoft will have to add that support to compete. They will also have to do so at the last minute so as to not give any confidence in ODF. By displaying little confidence in ODF as a native format they are also displaying little confidence in their ability to support ODF.
Damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Once they add ODF support to be considered for a competition for a state contract they will have to add that support to everyone they sell Microsoft Office to in the future. If they don't they are likely to find themselves in a support nightmare (I saved it with Word in Illinois, why won't it open in Word when I'm in New York?), or a legal nightmare (So you're telling me I can't sell this version of Office to someone from out of state? What about interstate commerce laws?).
Microsoft probably realizes, which is why they fight so hard, that open formats have to win only one battle to win the war. Once open formats get a foot in the door it will only be a matter of time for open formats spread. Having a populous state like New York, California, or Texas will only make the switch happen more quickly in federal and neighboring state governments.
The advantage of using Microsoft is in economies of scale, and network effects. The same advantage will make open formats spread very quickly once established in one state to other states.
Microsoft is very afraid. They should be. Office is one of their few products that has the distinction of actually turning a profit. A move to open formats would force them to compete on price, support, and features, something that they haven't had to do for a very long time.
~100 years of high SOLAR output seems to work...
Fixed that for you.
There, fixed that for you.
More and more people are using VOIP as their primary phone service in the home. Aren't there laws against cutting off one's access to 911? That would be the net effect if the internet provider killed a person's broadband. If a person doesn't pay the bill on their POTS telephone the telephone company will generally kill the phone's ability to receive calls and dial anything except 911 and the customer support, but they won't make it completely dead.
I could be completely wrong, of course.
The FCC said that it will no longer maintain separate privileges between Technician and Technician Plus. Does that mean Technicians gain the privileges of the Tech Plus or do the Tech Plus lose its HF privileges?
People ask why there was a Morse code test to begin with. What I was told at one time was that it was to allow the US Navy, the group that issued Amateur radio licenses way way back when, wanted to be able to order Amateurs off the air if they needed a frequency. This was because while the Amateurs could build what ever radio they liked the Navy had a large number of CW radios which could not be replaced on a whim. I was then repeatedly berated to stop spreading such a myth but was rarely given the real reason that Morse code testing was put into place.
So, this is the REAL reason that Morse code was required of Amateurs. Long ago when spark gap transmitters roamed the earth there were many different "alphabets" in use. The only way to communicate was with on/off keying, now commonly called CW, using short and long tones and short and long spacing in between the tones one could portray letters and numbers. There was the US Navy code, the Royal Navy code, the American Morse code, the Continental Morse code etc. So unless you knew what the code was it was hard for people to understand each other. So by international agreement they agreed on the International Morse Code. Amateurs were then required to know it since voice communication was rare on the radio at the time.
Fooling the thumb print scanners was also in a Mythbusters episode. They fooled the "unfoolable" with a spit moistened photocopy (IIRC). I have little faith in such technology.
I guess you missed the point. Sometimes you put people on the board because you now exactly how they will vote every time.
Did he just say that Windows XP is broken? Why would I want to buy from him again if I got stuck with a broken product the first time around? It doesn't give much in consumer confidence if their answer for a flawed product is to buy the next one that they promise is not broken, which is what they said the last time.
Aren't there laws against this? I mean if my car has flaw in its brakes the company that made it is usually required to fix it by law. If not then at least the manufacturer feels compelled to fix it to assure that they can continue to sell since a poor product tends to sit on store shelves.
I guess I live in a dream world where most everything is a commodity, where standards prevail, and where competition drives excellence.
...then you have not been paying attention.
Any one else find it frightening that it has come down to where we are asking the government permission to enter a plane?
I had a discussion about this with a friend from work the other day about this very topic. He didn't seem concerned about the eroding of our freedoms.
Checking identification does not stop the criminals. It just forces them to go the extra step to steal your identity first. If the potential terrorist enters a plane without weapons then they are not a threat. If there are crew, passengers, and hopefully a marshall, on board willing and able to subdue any one that poses a threat to people or the plane then they are not a threat.
Checking for knives, guns, and explosives before entering a plane makes me feel safe. Checking my identification before I have done anything wrong makes me feel like I have had my freedoms eroded.
"Uncle Sam? May I please get from point A to point B?" "Papers please?"
The "special access card and receiver" is called a "television set". They are doing exactly what you propose. Since there are a few reasons for buying a television and not using it for receiving broadcast TV there is a process to apply for a waiver. Just be thankful a waiver exists at all.
There was a mention to regulate CO2 as a pollutant.
Sooooo, I'll have to file for my yearly tax on breathing? Will I (or rather my estate) get a "carbon credit" for when I'm dead and buried? After all my corpse having been given a proper Christian burial will have sequestered several pounds of carbon. (How much carbon is there in a human body anyway?)
How about going after those other greenhouse gases, like water and methane? Maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas, and buy some Beano just in case they pick up on it.
Nuclear doesn't make sense for energy. It's been clear from the cost of operation from day one, but sometimes people refuse to see it.
And you have numbers to back this up? It's all about a cost/benefit. Nuclear may cost more in $$$ but produces no CO2, NOx, or soot.
How much Uranium is available for mining in the world? How does How much Uranium does it take to make refined nuclear fuel? What's the price of Uranium fuel nowadays? Is it increasing sharply? Why?
There is enough uranium in the ground to last centuries. If the legal issues are pushed aside for things like preventing refining spent fuel (a recently removed hurdle) and keeping breeder reactors from being built we would have enough fuel for a very long time since we could effectively make more fuel as we burn what we mined.
Tying ourselves to nuclear energy is putting ourselves in the same trap as fossil fuel, except it'll be a much faster trap to spring.
You have data to back up this assertion?
Two additional thoughts: How much fossil fuel do we currently use to mine the Uranium, refine it, and build the reactors? And how much additional heat do you think each reactor dumps into the lakes and rivers they use for cooling water?
The amount of heat that a nuclear reactor dumps into the lakes and rivers per kWh is identical to that of a coal fired plant. The only difference between how a nuclear and coal fired electric power plant is how they heat the water to spin the turbines that drive the generators. Considering the energy density of uranium versus that of coal I would imagine that much less energy is spent on getting the uranium out of the ground and into the reactor than the energy spent getting the coal from ground to boiler given identical power outputs.
What is currently keeping nuclear power plants from being competitive is the operating costs. Because regulations require safety and environmental measures well above that of a coal plant a nuclear power plant cannot compete. Put similar restraints on pollution and radiation (yes, coal is radioactive as are many things dug from the ground) and the playing field will be level.
Does this mean I can get my dual boot BeOS/Windows computer now?
What?
The most interesting thing to me right now is reading all the old guys lament the FCC dropping the last of the Morse code tests to get a ham license on QRZ.com.
I don't have a license yet but will once the FCC proposal to end Morse code testing becomes law. I don't think I'll do much talking at first. Right now I'm more interested in shortwave listening, digital communication, and weather spotting. None of those interests require a ham radio license but it would be reqired to transmit if I wish.
I remember a few years ago where just about every Linux distro supported booting from a drive file. Sadly that feature seems MIA these days. I was thinking that such a feature may be useful with Boot Camp to allow each Linux "partition" to exist in its own file on either the FAT/NTFS or HFS+/UFS partition.
I've been hoping to see a Linux distro that supported booting from a drive image file for PPC. It would help in convincing some people to try out Linux on their Macs, some of which still run Mac OS 9.
From my understanding this "cold" fusion requires heavy hydrogen just like the traditional "hot" fusion. That means tritium or the more stable deuterium. Where can a person go to buy this stuff? Is the density of heavy hydrogen in normal tap water high enough to make this "Mr. Fusion - Home edition" work? Can the heavy hydrogen be derived from sources other than water? Such as natural gas? Imagine that, a standard house furnace or water heater with a fusion "afterburner" to get the most out of your natural gas bill.
Maybe this is all moot since the heater will have a 30 year supply of heavy hydrogen inside out of the factory. Just bring it home and turn it on. When the fuel runs out send it back for disposal and buy a new one.
Even if this does work many questions are going to have to be answered before people go out and buy it.
Interesting how they tie the giveaway to current Republicans and
Democrats and yet who is mentioned supporting the giveaway in the article?
* Charles Grassley, Republican (IA)
* Rick Santorum, Republican (PA)
* Gordon Smith, Republican (OR)
* Orrin Hatch, Republican (UT)
Who is mentioned as being against the giveaway?
* Lloyd Doggett, Democrat (TX)
So maybe it's the so-called "liberal media" who is just raking the GOP over
the coals. Or, maybe it's representative of trying to show the corrupt GOP
Congress as being bipartisan in a weak attempt to appear "fair and balanced."
In this case, I suspect it's the latter. YRMV.
Don't look at the party so much as the home state of the Congresscritters. A Texan isn't going to like alternative fuel subsidies since a large part of their economy is based on the production of conventional fuels. States rich in wood, corn, and coal are going to support the subsidy since it brings money to their state.